Kaitlin and I have been busy with our real estate endeavor. Perhaps too busy (more on that another time). There have been a lot of positive experiences, but there’s also been some tough lessons. This is the latter.
I recently wrote about our first “full circle” Detroit rental property. We purchased this home with an existing tenant, and if you read both of those posts I was hopeful that we could get the tenants back on track. They had a history of late rent payments and, I’d later find out, illegal water usage and possibly (I’m still figuring this one out) illegal gas usage, too.
We managed to collect two months of rent, but only after having to send a 7-day “pay or quit” notice. We weren’t so lucky the third time after some text back-and-forth with the tenants resulted in them replying “OK” after I finally stated we’d have to start the eviction process.
What followed was a nearly 2.5 month process of getting the tenants out of the property. For all you hopeful landlords out there, here’s the timeline of events:
- September 6th: 7-day Pay or Quit notice sent to tenant after failing to pay rent by their grace period (the 5th)
- September 13th: Tenant did not pay or move out. We hired a lawyer to send a Termination of Tenancy Notice, giving them until October 15th to move out. The cost for this was $75.
- October 16th: Tenant still hadn’t moved, and we filed a court case to have them evicted.
- October 23rd: We were given a court date for October 30th.
- October 30th: The tenant appeared in court, and we received a judgement. The tenant agreed to move out by the end of November 12th.
- November 13th: I showed up with a locksmith to regain possession of the house.
Now, that was our timeline and order of main events for this eviction. But they’re all different. There were a lot of juicy details that went on between these bullet points.
Early attempts at re-possession
Initially, I was trying to coax the tenant to move out early. The woman called me on September 30th, crying uncontrollably. She didn’t ask for anything beyond another week to move out. It was easy enough to grant, considering we had zero power at this point beyond waiting for the legal process to take root. But I played it off as if there was something imminent that would force them out of the home, and told her that I could wait one more week as long as she kept me updated. She promised she would.
It later became pretty clear this was all an act, and she was working with her husband (who was always much more aggressive but also wasn’t on the original lease) behind the scenes. I was texting back-and-forth with the tenant that same day (Sept. 30th) when her husband called me to say,
“One more comment from you and I’ll burn the mother fucker down.”
He was clearly referring to the house, and hung up before I could get a word in.
The tenant texted me on October 8th, saying they had no place to go. I sent her a list of shelters in the area. Her husband almost immediately started texting me telling me he, “I go to shelters you will see it on the news” and declaring that I need my “ass whipped” and that I should “come by and get one”.
I didn’t respond.
An attempt to stall
It was another ten days until I heard anything from the occupants. The husband texted me on October 18th saying, “Did you put in for the eviction yet, if not I can give you a date on when she will be out”. When I replied that the wheels were already in motion he simply said, “ok see you in court”. I gave him the thumbs up emoji 🙂
This was clearly a ploy to try and stall the legal process so they’d get more time to freeload in the home. Although this is our first rodeo, we’re not that dumb.
A guessing game
Once the court gave the November 12th deadline for the tenants to vacate, it became a bit nerve wracking. Clearly, the tenants weren’t very response or helpful. It’s not like they were going to keep us abreast on their progress (or lack thereof). So I started driving by the house to try and get an idea of whether or not they were still living there.
The problem is, if there’s any evidence that the tenants are still in the home, we’d have had to proceed with the final step of the eviction process: having a bailiff come out and forcibly remove them from the property. This is apparently very expensive. Friends have told me it can be between $2,000 and $4,000. Obviously, it’s something you want to avoid.
So I drove by the home on two different occasions: once in the afternoon and once at 9pm at night. I didn’t feel comfortable getting out and poking around the house due to the aggression the tenants had displayed. Instead I looked for things like lights on, activity around the house, or a car in the driveway (it was always there any time I’d been there previously). There was no evidence of any of this stuff.
Kaitlin drove by one morning at 9am and even got out of her car, prepared with a back story on why she had the wrong house if someone happened to open the door. She peeked through the windows and could see furniture, their dining table, etc.
That’s what really got me anxious. Our lawyer told us that if there’s anything left in the house we’d have to proceed with eviction unless the tenants confirmed they were out and the remaining contents were garbage.
Making contact
On November 8th, just four days before the court ordered deadline, I texted the husband asking if he had his wife’s current phone number. It changed constantly. No response.
I texted the next day, this time from my personal cell number (I used an app with a local Detroit number for all my tenant correspondence). But I used a different tactic. I told him that I still had their security deposit (true) that I’d like to return (not at all true) “once we have possession of the house”.
An hour later, after no response, I tried calling him from my Detroit phone number. I was shocked when he picked up. But I was even more floored that he was calm, level headed, and said they’d be out by the 12th. I wouldn’t have believed him if he hadn’t quickly said, “or else the bailiff will be out and nobody wants that”.
Later that night he responded to the text on my personal cell, asking when a good time to meet would be. He wanted that security deposit! I kindly told him there’s no need to meet, and I’d forward it to him after I took possession of the house on the 13th and he sent me an address to mail it to. “OK”, he said.
Getting the house back
On the morning of November 13th I showed up with a locksmith to change the locks. We entered the house, and made sure it was empty. I then texted the tenant, asking him to confirm he’d moved out and the remaining stuff (there was a lot of it!) was garbage.
He confirmed all the above, and sent me a forwarding address. Somehow he thinks he’s actually getting that security deposit back!
Now we’re left cleaning up the house, doing some updates, and finding a new tenant. Here are some photos of the condition of the house when we got in:
Fortunately, you aren’t able to smell the terrible odors. There was animal (we think cat) feces in a number of rooms and a stench of urine. Food was left in the refrigerator and freezer, but the power had been out… likely for weeks. We’re pretty sure they’d been out of the house for awhile and simply didn’t feel like letting us know.
There are plenty of more pictures, none of which truly due the situation justice. But you can see them here if you’d like. Luckily, we had a great crew help us get everything out and to the dump. We also demo’d the kitchen and bathroom floors. Total cost to have all that done was $1,112.40 — ouch.
Here’s what the house looked like fully cleaned out.
The takeaway
Beyond learning about the eviction process, our biggest takeaway from this is simple: If you purchase a home with a questionable tenant in it (most inherited ones are), start the process of getting them out of there immediately!
I naively thought we could get the tenant back on track and paying rent on time. Too often I give people the benefit of the doubt. In the end it didn’t really cost us much more money (we would have gone through the same timeline regardless), but we’re now dealing with turning over a home during winter. That’s not ideal.
Next steps
Now that the house is cleaned out we’re having it deep cleaned. The house is still extremely gross and needs some love before we can even think about painting, etc. That’s going to cost us another $400 and is scheduled for Wednesday.
Next, we’ll be tiling the kitchen and bathroom floors. Once done we’ll be getting the bathroom tile and tub re-glazed, refinishing the hardwood, painting, and knocking out a few small items around the house (hanging doors, securing handrails, replacing a downspout, etc.).
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s another month before the house is fully ready. The good news is we expect to bump the rent a fair bit from what the previous tenant was wasn’t paying.
We’re looking forward to picking our own tenants and hopefully not dealing with this situation for a good while.
